But not in this country, just ask Google, Facebook, or any number of other data mining entities.

It’s obvious there are those who are willing, even eager, to be pimped for the “privilege” of access to social media sites like FB.

Those who never read end user “agreements” or if they do in their eagerness for access say that’s just the way it is and plunge ahead.

Then there is that group of forward thinking apologists who cling to asinine qualifications of well if you’re not doing anything wrong what’s the big deal if privacy has become little more than a word?

So what is this all about? Simple, you are viewed as a marketable commodity – it’s a form of human trafficking with legislation (or the lack of it), corporations, and the government being complicit.

Much of this is presented as “free”, the dangled carrot – free email, free apps, free photo sharing sites, but what really boggles the mind are those willing to pay for the “privilege” of being pimped.

Not everyone has children but those who do should understand when their children go online a dossier is being built about them, has an air of stalking and perversion about it doesn’t it?

I read something once about the solution is for everyone to poison the well with misinformation – maybe so but I’m sure if a law doesn’t already exist related to that some pandering piece of legislation would soon become the way of it – after all we’re talking about corporate revenue and their “right” of exploitation.

Congress just voted yesterday to allow internet providers to rape and sell every aspect of who you are – it’s official now, they believe they not only own you but can act as your personal pimp whether you like it or not – it’s their version of human trafficking.

This is what modern democracy with a conservative “patriotic” slant to it looks like, everything has a price tag.

This data mining and privacy invasion is nothing new, FaceBook and Mark Zuckerberg wrote the book on it eagerly joined by entities like Microsoft and Google.

At some point this will probably be couched in terms of “national security” – that catchall phrase politicians love to employ when there is no legitimate explanation.

Somehow the corrupted version of “capitalism” practiced in this country finds it impossible to adhere to the basic tenets pf privacy other countries like Germany does.

Somehow the gluttony of internet providers can’t match the speed of countries like South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Latvia, Japan, The Netherlands, Finland, and the Czech Republic.

Latvia and the Czech Republic?!

Now does anybody want to talk about “American Exceptionalism”?

And which party do you suppose Marsha Blackburn author of the bill belongs to? Why, the grand old party of course, Republican – which is an egregious use of the word republic in any form – they should just call themselves corporate flunkies and let it go at that.

Think you’re somehow above being trafficked, have some kind of immunity? Wrong, you’ve been pimped.

A great many studies have been conducted on the subject of murdered and missing indigenous women – our women, the women of our nations.

But studies are meaningless if the facts aren’t accepted and acted upon.

The precedent if one were to look to the past would be rooted in the “discovery” of this continent, this hemisphere, and the resulting exploitation and colonization – a tragic reality that persists to this day.

Murdered and Missing women today is commonly associated with human trafficking and the drug trade, but there’s more to it than that.

There is a national, global, and even communal nature as well that stems from the decline of a traditional respect for women.

A traditional respect replaced by the adoption of patriarchal and Christian values of male dominance – men lead and women follow.

This lack of respect and male dominance experienced a surge in the 1960’s, a surge I associate with the formation of the American Indian Movement and the examples they provided.

Examples of drugs, alcohol, rape, and the embrace of patriarchal values.

“Warrior” came to mean men didn’t provide they controlled, used, and abused.

Fatherhood, the number of women, and the number of children sired became a bragging right rather than a responsibility as in the case of Dennis Bank$ and his “elk medicine”.

Women were chattel, privileged to be “owned”, privileged to be in the company of men who spoke mightily of native pride while negatively redefining the meaning.

There’s an adage that a house divided cannot stand – our house as people and nations has become culturally divided.

If our communities are considered to be “target rich” environments as this young punk says in the linked video, Rape on the Reservation, then it can only follow others will view our women as targets as well.

If any of our nations youth can speak of putting a woman in their place, of hitting, abusing, or getting them drunk and passing them around, then when we begin pointing fingers we need to point to ourselves first as discomforting as that may be.

And in that pointing give the AIM leadership one of those fingers for the examples and influence they generated.

The word “warrior” has become cliche, too often self bestowed for those who cannot reference themselves without including the word – to them I say if you call yourself one then be and act like one, protect and provide, be a real father.

Native pride? If you claim that then live it in a meaningful way.

If these things are done then our women will be safer, our communities urban or on the rez will be more secure – and thattranslates to a healthier environment for our children.

I know warriors, true warriors, both women and men who are making the effort – who understand what native pride means and living it.

Any in need of examples need only look to them, they and tradition based elders.

I am encouraged that I cannot provide an inclusive list of these true warrior women and men, such are their growing numbers.

I inevitably would unintentionally omit more than few – but I will take this opportunity to give a shout out to Denise Pictou Maloney, her sister Debbie, daughters of AIM murder victim Annie Mae Pictou Aquash, and Katherine McCarthy author of Invisible Victims, a must read.

The truth is we can’t allow borders to separate us, what happens to our women whether in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America must become a priority.

Homan has commented on this blog in the past, comments that I thought were insightful, but at the same time knew little about her or the backstory.

I recently ran across the below linked article and believe it is a tale of survival and the “keep punchin’ ” philosophy I adhere to – don’t quit, if you can’t beat them straight up then outlast them.

Some times it may be easier to throw the towel in, to just give up and accept whatever comes your way – you may or may not like her style but I love a fighter who says in the face of adversity enough is enough and keeps getting up.

Life is for living, not submission, you either stand or bow and crawl – no one owns the world or it’s resources, and no one by birth, position, or ethnicity is better than anyone else.

The wealthiest are no more entitled than the poorest, nor the intellectual as opposed to the illiterate or less learned.

“Civilization” has a long history of being anything but civilized – more wars and deaths have resulted from religious differences than any other reason and I don’t give a damn what religion it is, that is the bare naked truth of it.

Classism and caste systems are a global reality as Homan points out- poverty is seen to be a personal fault and the impoverished members of a lepers colony to perhaps be “pitied” from a distance for fear of contamination, and alternately blamed for being a burden.

Throw just enough money at them to keep the lid on, to maintain the level of poverty and insure a corporate and employers dreams of a cheap easily manipulated work force.

Trillions in national debt, hundreds of billions on defense and foreign wars- free education, free medical, free everything following the invasion of another country under the aegis of “nation building” but not so here as that would be socialism and dramatically alter the landscape.

Trade agreements that destroy jobs, enrich the wealthy, and fortify the gap between the haves and have nots.

Homan speaks of herself at times as being too old, and yet demonstrates that no one is ever too old to raise their voice, never too old to attempt to pay forward what they have be it large or small, never too old to continue striving – I think there’s a lesson in that people should take to heart.

But this blog isn’t just about Jacqueline Homan – it’s about every disenfranchised man, woman, and child in poverty – every woman among our nations or any nation who has been a victim of human trafficking in any form.

The most generous people I have ever know are those with the least – it’s easy to give when you have more than you need, but not so easy when you don’t, or to give in the midst of your own need.

I think Homan would do well to keep kicking ass and taking names, and I’m inclined to believe she will.

When the topic of human trafficking comes up people generally associate that with the sex trade, but there is another side to it that I find even more egregious and distasteful, the marketing of infants and children.

I’m not a proponent of sterilization, especially in view of how that was visited upon the women of our nations without their knowledge or consent.

But in the case of a parent who would sell a child, any child, I haven’t any hesitation in saying not only should they be jailed but sterilized as well man or woman.

Human trafficking in every form has increased without any indication of abating, a reality that should lead to a global outrage and a global crackdown.

I would ask that a person consider foregoing that extra cup of coffee or danish and instead donate the comparable amount or more to The A21 Campaign, you’d be doing a good thing.

When it comes to the unsettling it may not be wise to rely on “official” versions or numbers, and I suspect that’s the case with Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women.

As a demographic the first nations people of Canada compose about four percent of the population and something like sixteen percent of murdered women.

There are those who dispute the victim count asserting it is higher, and I suspect they are correct in doing so – either way though it’s somewhat simplistic to say the numbers are merely disproportionate or something to argue over as though numbers are just figures on a piece of paper.

That isn’t to say more women of different ethnicities should go missing or murdered to balance the scale, rather that indigenous women are being targeted and the Canadian government needs to step up and proactively address the issue.

The relationship between the Canadian government and the first nations mirrors that of the relationship between the U.S. government and it’s own indigenous people, strained, and often indifferent is to put it mildly.

On both sides of the border poverty and disenfranchisement characterize the indifference, and it is axiomatic that the treatment of the least among any nations population to great degree define the national governmental character.

In the day to day world of the individual truth can at times become inconvenient, but I’m of the opinion that this inconvenience and discomfort factor is multiplied when viewed through the lens of politicians and office holders as the truth often comes in the form of an indictment – they will and can talk the talk but exhibit difficulty in waking the walking and following through.

The human aspect becomes secondary to the perceived “problem” and gives rise to terms like the “ndn problem.

A “problem” that continues to exist and inexorably linked to history – the history of genocide, conquest, reserves and reservations more fittingly referred to as gulags, policies past and present, and the very disenfranchisement and poverty that have resulted.

No one can deny that women are murdered and abused on the rez by individuals residing within their own communities, but it would be a lie to ascribe the disproportionate number of missing and murdered women to that circumstance – yet it too though it may be an inconvenient truth needs to be addressed.

What fuels the numbers beyond the rez can be attributed to the drug trade and human trafficking, the connection between the two are undeniable to me.

On the surface at least it seems doubtful that there isn’t a woman alive anywhere who couldn’t become the victim of an abuser or sexual predator, and that’s a pretty sad societal commentary.

But the farther down a woman is on the socio economic ladder the risk increases, and it would be difficult to find a more impoverished demographic within the U.S and Canada than indigenous people.

The “ndn problem” is a created one, there is no traditional foundation for it’s existence, and as such obliges those who created the problem to address it if not in a caring and compassionate manner then in a conscientious way.

Addressing such an issue can only bear fruit if done so in a cooperative way between nations, communities, and governments.

Distrust and suspicion will have to be overcome, no small task all things considered, but since the nations are no longer sovereign in the truest sense of the word there doesn’t seem to be any other viable approach.

As a people we can control what takes place in our communities if we have the will and determination to do so, but that ability incrementally decreases the moment we leave them and we find the same dependency that haunts us on the rez follows us around like a shadow.

People everywhere dream of a Utopia, a return to Eden, and that’s exactly what it is, a dream.

Too many global, national, and environmental problems for the so called Age of Aquarius to take place – what we are left with is an individual and communal responsibility to be and live strong, to have values and adhere to them, to remember and not forget what it is to be a human being and settle for nothing less than for our women, our children, and ourselves to be treated as such.

Below is a link to an article by Tamara Cherry published in the TorontoSun addressing the issue of the sex trade involving indigenous women-some as young as seven years old.

This is a global issue and should be addressed with a global outcry and the adoption by all countries of a zero tolerance policy.

The sex trade can be likened to the hub of a wheel with radiating connecting spokes to other crimes such as drugs, murder, rape, abduction, assault, abuse, and pedophilia- a many headed hydra that by extrapolation impacts all of society. It should be addressed as such.

To some degree or another we all products of our environment, the reality of poverty and a lack of opportunity in indigenous communities are a contributing factor to alcohol and substance abuse, which in turn can be a contributing factor to the sex trade.Not in the classic abduction and use of force but in the need created to feed an addiction.

The fact that as a minority we aren’t seen to have much of voice is part of the equation that lends itself to vulnerability and being seen as easy prey. If our communities become dysfunctional in any way that too will contribute to the perception and exacerbate the problem.

There is no easy fix-no legislation or law that will be a cureall – no political rhetoric. But it would go a long way if such laws and legislation were given a priority-if our communities would literally raise hell within them and out demanding that our women and children be seen the equals of any other.

Existing attitudes seem to have their origins and are embedded in the patriarchal concept that women are chattel, that a defense of having “elk medicine” suffices, or a recent example by a Japanese politician who defended what he referred to as the need for “comfort women” by troops during WW2.

It is chilling to watch a young man in the video Rape On The Reservation refer to women and young girls in our communities as being a target rich environment -perhaps more so in the same video for a young girl to say that’s just the way it is.

I see much of what is transpiring on the global stage as indifference, and much of what is happening within our communities as indications of the erosive effects of assimilation that have led to breaking away from traditions.

We as a people either do what is right or we don’t and suffer the consequences…there is no middle ground. We either help and defend those of our own in need of it or they will pay the price, and we as nations will as well.